Sabbatical

Bikes are like big capacitors of happiness. You work hard to spin them up full of good feelings and memories and later on, when you need it, they discharge back into you through less fervent revolution of the pedals.

We've been charging the bikes a lot lately, and turning the cranks of life pretty hard too (man, just how hard can I milk this metaphor?). The aftermath of the Kona led into the onset of year end madness pretty quickly and there's been a palpable need to decompress.



Jim's year has been stellar. It's hard to believe that it was only three years ago that he borrowed a bike for Ride to Work Day, won a light for his efforts and figured he'd better buy a bike to put it on. Two oh oh seven has made him a competitive number among the Expert field, a team-mate of one of the great men of enduro racing, a husband and a home owner.

Nell has ridden himself ragged putting in the kind hours on the bike and behind a wrench that would make lesser men sick at the sound of a freewheel. Through those hours he managed to keep a wickedly juvenile sense of humour and a genuine compassion for his fellow rider alive. A new job behind a desk and good old fashioned summertime illness coincide with just a wee bit of burn out and yep, it's time for a sabbatical.

Long solos and little trips to the milk bar; agenderless afternoon dirt surfing sessions and catch up rides where the pace is measured in the width of the grin. Riding around in little circles. Wheelies.

It's the general discharging of good vibes out of the bike-capacitor and back into the rider. Ahhh, it's learning to love again.

More photos from the Kona

As I'm sure many of you are already aware, OnTrack images is packing a wicked catalogue of shots from the race. Scoot along and order a print or two if you were there, they do a great job.

You have no chance to survive make your time

The Kona 24 hour race at Forest has been run and won, "All your race are belong to us" finished in the top 5 in men's 4s, we're still unsure of where as one of Steve's laps didn't get counted. The team consisted of Steve, Ryan, Chris Quain (my flatmate and pump track extraordinaire) and myself. Ryan had put in some training, and Chris had some extra k's under his belt since Mont, however Steve and I both felt underdone and dubious about our form, in all we had hoped for a competitive race and some fun.



This race was pretty unique, it had 3 courses used throughout the race, something I've never encountered before. I've come to think this was to help preserve the local tracks rather than provide variety for riders. But it certainly did keep you on your toes with new trails every few laps, in some of the larger teams some riders didn't get a chance to ride all 3 courses! Every one of the courses offered a series of berms that made me smile, although I admit the big ones on the first day course were huge and made it tough to get up front on the bike, still the g-forces were something else.

This year there was no car camping, so everyone was in the small, tent city on the football oval, it created a great atmosphere, with old and new friends just a pedals throw away. All of the Baum boys dossed together creating a tent/tarp behemoth that took some effort to construct Saturday morning, and what seemed like more effort to deconstruct Sunday afternoon.



The tracks were a mix of newly cut, natural flow and man assisted, with my favourite being the night course, all 3 definitely had some great sections. I recognised a few bits from the Otway Odyssey raced at the beginning of the year, some bits I learnt to love, others once again took their toll on my tired and suffering body (yoyo trail on the 2nd day lap)

Like most races, once it has started I became fuelled with a sense of competitiveness, anxiously hanging on any new time updates. White line fever or not, days later it's not the winning or losing I remember, it's the people I meet while out there riding or back in camp that keeps me returning.



I have enormous respect for the solo riders, one of whom, Belly (Andrew Bell), I saw out in the middle of the night, around 3am, he looked pretty beaten up. Amazingly he was still able to form words and told me of his effort to catch John (Claxton), getting within 11 minutes at some point. I got the impression that the gap was by then a lot more than 10 minutes and excluding an incident had given up on the win. Shaun Kinna resplendent in his Molenti top kept rocking around and managed 7th, Shaun is 42 and suffers my repeated "hey dude, I like your top" with awesome grace, especially considering he gets it every time I see him. :)

I'm not sure what the hour was when I gave a young man a quick push up the last bit of a fire road climb, but what I won't forget is how proud he was to announce "This is my first race". He couldn't have been more than 15, it was pitch black, he was knackered with at least 20 minutes to go in that lap, yet I know that he's having the time of his life and will be back to race again.



Oh, for all of you wondering about the odd team name, and post titles, go here.